Dennis Nicholls
Senior HTF Member
This is all Brian E’s fault…..
:p)
The Hanssler Classics set of the complete works of J.S. Bach is available on 172 CDs from Amazon for $1,800. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...ce&s=classical There are some reviews at this link.
But a much better deal is to order it from a store in Frankfurt called “2001” http://www.zweitausendeins.de/indexengl.htm for the price of 119.99 Euros. With shipping to the US this comes to about $191 US. This set is a budget re-release of the original year 2000 Hanssler set, manufactured under license by Bohemian Music Service in the Czech Republic www.bmscompany.cz . It’s packaged 4 discs per jewel case. Included are an additional 2 CD-ROMs that contain notes and lyrics for the vocal works.
Your $191 buys you every single work Bach wrote: all the cantatas, all the other choral works, all the keyboard works, all the orchestral works, all the organ works, and all the chamber works. The set is anchored by the set of the cantatas recorded 1970s - early1980s by the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart under Helmut Rilling. These are good solid works, getting 2.5 to 3 stars (out of 3) in the Penguin guide. These same forces do most of the other vocal works. Rilling uses modern instruments but in the faster tempi usually seen with “period” instruments.
Rilling also conducts most of the orchestral works. The set of Brandenburgs and Orchestral Suites sees him with the “Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra”. Not the best set of either but more than adequate.
Some of the solo keyboard works are great. Trevor Pinnock on harpsichord for the Partitas is excellent. The English and French suites are played on piano by Robert Levin and Edward Aldwell, respectively, and are very good. The same is true with the organ works. My touchstone organ work is the Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540. Here it receives a great performance by Bine Katrine Bryndorf. I had recently purchased the SACD of E. Power Biggs performing the same work, and am amazed that (1) the Bryndorf performance is far superior and (2) the cheap recording in this set sounds better than Sony’s SACD (!).
The solo string players aren’t as good. The cellist for the cello suites, Boris Pergamenschikow, is pretty good. But the violinist for the sonatas and partitas, Dmitri Sitkovetsky, is second rate. Then again, I’m spoiled with the wonderful set by Szeryng. After his performance all others aren’t competitive.
In short, a mostly recently-recorded set with generally very good sound quality and generally very good performances. Not perfect, but you don’t get to pick and choose in a boxed set like this.
THIS IS AN UNBELIEVEABLE BARGAIN. YOU SHOULD BUY IT. IT’S WORTH FAR MORE THAN $191.
Heck, I’m going to give away some of the 4 disc items as presents. For example, I have a set of the Brandenburgs and Orchestral Suites performed by Neville Marriner which I prefer. So the Hanssler set will form a generous gift. Same with the violin and cello solo works. I’ve got a CD of Szeryng, and the SACD of Starker, so off goes the Hanssler discs to some worthy nephew. My existing performance of the harpsichord partitas will be given away as I prefer the Pinnock performance of this set (!). And the same is true of the Biggs SACD organ performance.
:p)The Hanssler Classics set of the complete works of J.S. Bach is available on 172 CDs from Amazon for $1,800. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...ce&s=classical There are some reviews at this link.
But a much better deal is to order it from a store in Frankfurt called “2001” http://www.zweitausendeins.de/indexengl.htm for the price of 119.99 Euros. With shipping to the US this comes to about $191 US. This set is a budget re-release of the original year 2000 Hanssler set, manufactured under license by Bohemian Music Service in the Czech Republic www.bmscompany.cz . It’s packaged 4 discs per jewel case. Included are an additional 2 CD-ROMs that contain notes and lyrics for the vocal works.
Your $191 buys you every single work Bach wrote: all the cantatas, all the other choral works, all the keyboard works, all the orchestral works, all the organ works, and all the chamber works. The set is anchored by the set of the cantatas recorded 1970s - early1980s by the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart under Helmut Rilling. These are good solid works, getting 2.5 to 3 stars (out of 3) in the Penguin guide. These same forces do most of the other vocal works. Rilling uses modern instruments but in the faster tempi usually seen with “period” instruments.
Rilling also conducts most of the orchestral works. The set of Brandenburgs and Orchestral Suites sees him with the “Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra”. Not the best set of either but more than adequate.
Some of the solo keyboard works are great. Trevor Pinnock on harpsichord for the Partitas is excellent. The English and French suites are played on piano by Robert Levin and Edward Aldwell, respectively, and are very good. The same is true with the organ works. My touchstone organ work is the Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540. Here it receives a great performance by Bine Katrine Bryndorf. I had recently purchased the SACD of E. Power Biggs performing the same work, and am amazed that (1) the Bryndorf performance is far superior and (2) the cheap recording in this set sounds better than Sony’s SACD (!).
The solo string players aren’t as good. The cellist for the cello suites, Boris Pergamenschikow, is pretty good. But the violinist for the sonatas and partitas, Dmitri Sitkovetsky, is second rate. Then again, I’m spoiled with the wonderful set by Szeryng. After his performance all others aren’t competitive.
In short, a mostly recently-recorded set with generally very good sound quality and generally very good performances. Not perfect, but you don’t get to pick and choose in a boxed set like this.
THIS IS AN UNBELIEVEABLE BARGAIN. YOU SHOULD BUY IT. IT’S WORTH FAR MORE THAN $191.
Heck, I’m going to give away some of the 4 disc items as presents. For example, I have a set of the Brandenburgs and Orchestral Suites performed by Neville Marriner which I prefer. So the Hanssler set will form a generous gift. Same with the violin and cello solo works. I’ve got a CD of Szeryng, and the SACD of Starker, so off goes the Hanssler discs to some worthy nephew. My existing performance of the harpsichord partitas will be given away as I prefer the Pinnock performance of this set (!). And the same is true of the Biggs SACD organ performance.
